Why I am Starting this Training Log: I have spent the last year of my life "sitting on my backside" as a result of focusing in on my studies and unfortunately for my body, "sitting on my backside" has included a strict diet of coffee, cigarettes, terrible food and, when trying to relax, copious amounts of alcohol. The problem escalated in the last couple of months when my Masters program kicked in and I moved to Sweden. Between August and this January I was living in a tiny wooden hut in the middle of a forest (with no kitchen to cook my own meals) and had nothing much to do but study (usually involving chain smoking). I realized this had to change about a month ago when I had a "health incident". Walking home from the library one night I began to notice that every step I took hurt my stomach. To the point that when I got back to my cabin I was near the point of wanting to throw up because it had become so painful. I went into the nearby hospital the next day and was told that my stomach acidity was out of control and had inflamed as a result of my bad health habits combined with my stress levels. The problem cleared up in about a week of watching what I ate but the message was pretty clear: I need to get back to Martial Arts. Three positive things will result from becoming physically active again: 1. Lower stress levels. 2. I will once again look pretty decent when "nekkid". 3. It will encourage me to change other habits (generally my drinking/smoking tends to come and go and only really kicks into high gear when I have no reason to not do bad things to my body). The Plan As It Stands 1. By the end of March I want to get a functional level of fitness back. I have been jogging and doing some light body-weight exercises over the last week and I have already noticed how fragile I feel, how out of shape and lacking in co-ordination I am. The goal for the end of this month is to get to a point where I can exercise with moderate to high intensity without feeling like I'm risking an injury. 2. At some point I'd like to get back into MMA, or No-Gi or even knock-down karate, generally I find it much easier to exercise when I have a reason. However I intend to wait until my body is ready before I start blowing money on lessons for which I have to travel across town to attend. TRAINING LOG. BEGIN!
yay! good luck man! also, have you tried planks? pretty low impact and will give you a pretty useful set of abs for pretty much anything.
Not yet. I intend to however because well... core strength is a pretty versatile physical attribute. At the moment I haven't used them because the two exercise sessions I have done this week have included going for a short run to a basketball court near my house where I do stuff like box jumps (onto benches), star jumps, controlled sprints and the occasional set of inclined press ups. I'm careful with my press up variations because my collar that I broke nearly a year and a half ago still aches a little when too much pressure is put on that structure. Not sure what it's a sign of, or whether it's just something I have to get over and live with.
It sounds like you've got your head screwed on relatively well at least. Good luck with your training log dude, look forward to being perversely nosey and checking up on you occasionally
a small tip: listen to music when you plank. it gets pretty damn boring when you pass the 3 min mark, but aiming to get to a particular part of a particular song, or to make it through an entire song of x duration can give you some extra oomph and keep you engaged long enough to get it done
I broke my collarbone and I find my pectorals and armpit muscle on the side I broke it dont work well during pushups unless I think about it. And the shoulder on that side creeps up toward my ear.
Update: So in the past 5 days I have had two exercise sessions. They have both started with a 15 minute run to a nearby basketball court; a variety of calisthenics followed up with press ups and plank position. I have noticed that I'm also considerably chubbier round the waste and legs than I remember being. So I think the medium term goal to compliment my current short term goal should be to get rid of my excess flab. I'm willing to bet one of the reasons I have such poor co-ordination is the extra weight that I am carrying. Otherwise I have been trying out press-ups and I'm not as weak as I thought I would be. I'm still no where near where I once was, but I can see I have something to build on. I'm not having to re-teach myself how to do plank. My current struggle is sorting out my diet, in particular my habit of scoffing packets of biscuits with coffee when I work. I'm going to have to figure out a satisfying replacement for Oreos.
Went for a 20 minute run yesterday. Today I did some interval sprint training and finished it off with circuit routine consisting of squats, press ups, tuck jumps and squat thrusts. Feeling quite good right now, kind of euphoric and I'm enjoying it. It's been a long time since I have done anything that's put me in this lovely fuzzy "post-workout" space. By the end of the week I will draw up a set program that I can work on and in the mean time I intend to do some research on stretching. Having some extra-flexibility is always handy and reduces risk of injury which is a big plus for me.
